Once upon a time…

In about 1638, a family migrated from Bagneux, Picardie, France, to Quebec. At the time they relocated (a word that must blush in the light of what that move involved), Pierre Gareman and his wife Madeleine (nee Charlot) had two daughters, Florence and Nicole. A third daughter, Marguerite, was born in Canada, and a son, Charles, in 1643.

Pierre was granted some land on the St. Lawrence River, about 400 meters wide by 725 meters deep (later expanded to 3000 meters deep). In today’s geography, this is at the western end of St. Foy, which is now part of Quebec City. The local Iroquois conducted frequent raids, forcing the family to take refuge at a hospice in Sillery from time to time. Gareman stuck it out, and his was one of only two resident families in the area at the time.

In 1652, Madeline was reportedly captured by the Huron Indians and escaped, but was seriously injured and died from her injuries. On June 10, 1653, a group of Iroquois took Pierre and young Charles captive. His neighbor, Rene Mezerets, was shot three times during the attack and scalped. Pierre was tortured and killed—possibly burned alive. According to a Jesuit account, the Iroquois did not approve of men allowing themselves to be captured. Some reports say Charles was released because he was only a boy, whereas others say he lived with the Iroquois and married an Iroquois Oneiouts woman.

Pierre was my great¹⁰-grandfather (great × 10). His eldest daughter Florence was my great⁹-grandmother. Apparently she was also captured by the Iroquois at one point, but was released and had eleven children with her husband, Francois Boucher, between 1643 and 1664.

Every now and then, during my research, I find a story like this that goes beyond birth dates, marriages and deaths. Something that puts a human face on the ancestry. These were people who were alive during the latter part of Shakespeare’s lifetime, for example. That puts it in perspective for me.

It can all be a little mind-boggling, the exponential way genealogy explodes with each generation. By the time I get to Pierre Gareman, twelve generations, my family tree should contain about 8000 people, only including parents of parents of parents… Because of missing, incomplete or inaccessible records (some strands only go back three or four generations), I have little more than 5% of that accounted for at present. Here is a somewhat interesting paper (if you’re into numbers) that attempts to explain why each of us doesn’t have a trillion ancestors, as geometric math would seem to indicate. (It boils down to this: the ancestors of a given individual cannot be all different and most remote ancestors are repeated many times in any genealogical tree.)